


Under blue moon I saw you

by Mellow_Yellow



Series: Halloweener [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Night-time scary-time, Spooktober, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 04:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellow_Yellow/pseuds/Mellow_Yellow
Summary: A little flash fiction written on this image.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt from @thewritershandbook October Spooky Writing Challenge. These are just some quick, barely-edited works I'm churning out to get back in the groove. Thanks for giving them a chance! :)

The inherent risk of walking home alone was one of those things she felt could be combatted through extreme hypervigilance. She had her phone in one pocket, her keys and keychain clutched in her hand in the other, and she was feeling, if not confident, then suitably wary.

_I know this is dangerous, but I am on high-alert, therefore it is less dangerous._

It had been a good night. The concert was good (“The _show_ ,” Brett would have said with his predictable hip chagrin, “call it a _show_ , it’s a band, not the philharmonic.”), it had stopped raining an hour earlier and now she just needed to hop around the puddles to keep her feet dry. 

Brett had offered to give her a ride, but he had to work in less than four hours. He needed to sleep more than he needed to drop her at her doorstep. He didn’t need to babysit his shrew of an older sister.

“I don’t need a chauffeur,” she’d said, already walking backward as Brett tried to get her to stop.

“Come on, dad will have my ass,” he’d called, as though their father was watching their every move like a surburban seal team six operative.

“What?” She’d held a hand theatrically to her ear. “I can’t hear you, you’re too far away—what?”

“You’re a pain in the ass!” 

“Get some sleep, you tool! Have fun being an upstanding, tax-paying laborer!” 

Brett had groan-laughed, and flipped her off, and she’d turned to walk away, laughing, warmly fond. 

It wasn’t quite two in the morning, and for the first few blocks, she was far from alone. Groups of hip young things staggered by in glittering, giggling huddles, making her smile; a bouncer would let his eyes run over her figure a little too eagerly and she’d determinedly stare at the ground until she was gone; the occasional homeless gentleman would veer a little too close and she’d make a wide arc around him.

She stopped at a light with a few other people. The wind was picking up, cutting through the dumb fake leather of her jacket.

“This is longest light in the world,” someone next to her bemoaned, words slightly drunk-slurred.

She nodded peaceably; it really was. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, starting to feel chilled.

A beat passed, and the pedestrian light turned green. She walked across, and the group from the light dispersed as they went in different directions. She turned west, four or five blocks from her apartment. She passed the last big club in her neighborhood and soon she was mostly alone on the sidewalk. 

She was thinking of the concert (“It’s a _rock show_ , I feel like now you’re just being a jerk.”), and then logically of Brett, the big doofus, and of how much longer her own period of underemployment would last, and without thinking, or rather, with a single, risk-assessing thought that was so automatic it barely registered, she turned down the alley that would cut the rest of her walk in half.

The alley cut crossways through six or so city blocks and spit her out in the back lot of her apartment building near the dumpsters. As a route, it was a bit rat-heavy and shadow-filled to be truly ideal, but it kept her from having to walk by the little park that a group of homeless dudes liked to take over after dark, who, while probably perfectly fine guys with rich backstories and families, nevertheless got a little catcall-y and menacing under the safety of shadows.

In her mind, it was a calculated risk. The alley was usually empty. And if she kept alert ( _head on a swivel, head on a swivel_ , her dad's voice reminding her stubbornly in her mind), it would take maybe eight or nine minutes before she was walking up the stairs to her apartment. She walked this way all the time. Statistically, she was good.

No sooner had the thought gone through her mind when she heard the footsteps behind her, about fifty feet back, roughly at the mouth of the alley.

She looked over her shoulder. Back behind her, she could see a tall, young guy walking toward her—or in the same direction _as_ her, he might just be taking the shortcut too—pace measured and casual.

She gave a tight nod, the universal _I see you and as such I am enacting the social code of recognition trusting you not to be a creep now that we’ve made eye contact._

He didn’t nod back. Maybe he was just far enough away? But he didn’t slow down either, pace deliberate.

She turned forward and began walking faster. She listened to his footsteps behind her, and was a little soothed that they didn’t seem to be gaining. Maybe he was respecting her space, giving her distance.

It would be even more respectful if he would just loop around and take a different route, but maybe she was being silly.

She passed the first street intersection with the alley. She waited for a car to pass. She looked behind her, and saw the guy had stopped too, a respectful twenty feet or so. He was looking down at his phone. It was like he was trying not to spook her, which she appreciated.

She exhaled a little, trying to calm just a little. She turned and crossed into the alley on the other side. She walked for another minute before she noticed she didn’t hear him behind her anymore. She stopped and turned.

She was alone in the alleyway.

She frowned, hummed a little in thought. Maybe the guy had turned and gone a different way after all. But even though he was gone, she didn’t feel—alone. It was weird. 

She found herself walking fast when she continued on her way. She was only a few blocks away. She clasped her phone in her pocket with one hand, and her keys and keychain with the other. She could feel the gift from Brett bunched in with her other keys, and hesitated to do much but run her fingers over the handle. It had been a joke at the time, a gag gift practically, and flipping it open felt like too much, like overreacting.

She turned the corner, and the hair on her arms and legs prickled and stood to attention. 

Up ahead, there he was, standing silhouetted at the mouth of the alley, blocking her way. 

She stumbled to a stop. 

He stared at her. 

Eyes wide, she stared back, mind racing as a part of her tried desperately to convince the rest of her that she was overreacting. What if this guy was just lost, or he was also headed in the same direction. Anything was better than the alternative, that he was—that he— 

He looked about Brett’s age, young, long hair swept back, and tall and bony like he was on his last growth spurt, dark features. She couldn’t quite see his eyes, but she still knew they were drinking her in hungrily.

Like a reflex, she took one step back. 

He smiled. She could see his teeth glint just enough in the dark. 

Almost too fast to really comprehend with her own eyes, he began running straight toward her. He was moving fast.

She reared back, her entire body shaking and making her stumble as she made an automatic retreat. She couldn’t form a single thought beyond _fuckshitfuck_ but her hindbrain had taken over, helping her flee without stopping to freeze and consider, which felt like the smallest, swiftest of blessings in the moment. 

Running back the way she’d come, she came to the alley intersection and picked a direction at random, taking off north in the opposite direction of her apartment. His feet were thudding behind her, getting closer. She wished she were faster. Fuck, why wasn’t she _faster_? How was he _so fast_? Why was he _chasing_ her? Why had he picked _her_ for this?

There was no one else in the alleyway, no cars in the parallel streets. It was like everyone had emptied out of the city, everyone but her and the man behind her, panting evenly, gaining on her.

She hit the end of the alley and made to turn, into what would have been almost a complete circle of her original route. She stuck a hand out to steady herself as she whipped around the brick corner of the building, her turn wide. 

She could just see down the next alley, endless and empty and shadowed, when she was knocked the fuck over.

The guy plowed into her, in what felt like a free-flying tackle, taking her down in a scramble of limbs. They rolled through a few murky puddles, the fetid water stinking as it splashed around them. She didn’t know she was yelling, almost yipping like a terrified animal, until she heard her cries echoing off the building walls, up and down the alley. 

Even before they rolled to a stop, the guy was flipping her over, grabbing her shoulder with one hand and her neck, just above her collarbone, with the other.

“Fucking run from _me_ , you fucking _bitch_ ,” he was muttering. 

Dazedly, even as she struggled and screeched, she thought it was pretty amazing that _he_ was mad at _her_.

This close, she could see into his face, but she could barely focus. Everything was blurry, adrenaline making it difficult to think, to fight back, to focus on escape. She scratched at his arms with her nails. 

“Stop it,” he hissed, slapping her wrists away. “Fucking _stop it_.”

“ _You_ stop it!” she wailed out hysterically. She felt like she was arguing with Brett when they were little and not a deranged stranger pressing all his weight against her. Her words hushed as his hand pressed harder on the bottom of her neck, a threatening weight against her windpipe. 

He grabbed at one of her free wrists, and while they struggled with that one, his other hand still against her neck, she scrambled for her keys in her pocket. They slipped through her sweaty hand.

When Brett had given her the gift at Christmas, they’d spent a few minutes struggling to open it and shut it, fingers clumsy on the polished wood, then struggled even more to attach it to her keychain. Their mom had worried it was dangerous, and their dad had wondered whether it was even legal, but then there had been Christmas dinner to consume, and the gift had been nearly forgotten, other than something for her to worry mindlessly in her pocket on the subway, or while she was walking.

Now, she wished she had practiced a little more purposefully.

Like she was watching herself from a distance, she saw her free hand scrabbling with him as she was restrained, and her hidden hand click open the keychain knife in her pocket, nicking her thumb in the process.

The blade was only three inches long, but in the right place, she figured three inches was probably enough.

In an aborted motion, the knife snagging on her jacket as she yanked it out of her pocket, she brought it up in a wide arc and stabbed him in the side of the neck, driving the small knife in as deep as it could go.

The guy reared back with a howl, staggering sideways on his knees, the knife handle sticking out of his neck at a rakish, almost comical angle. 

Freed, she scrambled backward on her butt until her back hit the wall. She got into a crouch, knees still shaking, ready to run but also glued to the spot, watching him lurch around with the joke-gift keychain knife stuck in his neck. The rest of her keys jangled merrily on the keychain as he moved. 

“I didn't mean to!” she blurted out nonsensically, and really, dishonestly. That was exactly what she'd meant to do.

He spun his head to glare at her, and stumbled down, holding himself up propped on one elbow. 

“You—you—” The guy’s eyes were practically bulging in outrage. He patted blindly on his neck until he felt the knife handle. He held on, but didn’t pull it out. His lower lip trembled, as though to say, _do you see what you did?_

“Shit,” she murmured. “ _Shit_.”

“You fucking—you _stabbed_ me—why would you—” He seemed unable to wrap his head around what she had done, that she would dare, “—you bitch, you fucking _bitch_ —”

He tried to pull himself up but fell completely on his side. Blood was beginning to gush now. In the dark of the alleyway, it seemed to blend with the puddles of dirty water around them. Her own jeans and jacket were soaked, and she couldn’t tell if it was puddle water or blood, now.

“You _killed_ me!” he gasped out, his breathing growing thick and uneven.

She tried to deescalate, feeling like he was being dramatic. “We don’t know that.”

He smeared a hand across his throat, then held it out in supplication to her, seemingly as proof.

“ _You_ killed _me_!” 

“Maybe you’ll pull through?” she offered shakily, just babbling now, barely sure what she was saying but nevertheless not very confident in her assertion. There was a lot of blood. She should probably...call someone. That was probably the protocol here, she should get out her phone and call the police, or maybe an ambulance first—but they were all connected to the same 9-1-1 dispatch, right?

“Shit,” she muttered. Her heart was still pounding. The alleyway was suddenly quiet as death. She couldn’t even hear the distant city traffic. 

While she hesitated, dithering over what to do, the guy appeared to collapse.

Was he—did people die that quickly? 

She winced, muscles tight, ready to bolt. She crept just closer, trying to see if his chest was still moving. She couldn’t see in the dark. His eyes were open and staring off, completely out of focus.

The toe of her shoe slipped in the slime of an alley puddle, and as she jerked to keep her balance, her shoulder fell into his hip.

It seemed to reanimate him like some horrible, furious toy.

His arms shot out, Frankenstein’s-monster-style, and both hands wrapped tightly around his ankle. His head lifted so he could glare at her, her brother’s tiny keychain knife still sticking crazily out of his neck. 

“You bitch, you stupid bitch, _you stupid, stupid bitch,”_ he was hissing out, like air coming out of a tire, seemingly never needing to stop for breath. 

In his defense, she supposed, she was also jabbering similarly, words spilling out of her in an endless panic. “How are you doing this, _jesus_ , let go, get _off_!” 

How was he so _strong_? He had a knife in the neck, he was bleeding all over the place! She kicked at him desperately, her lizard brain response to being grabbed by the ankle prodding to life once more. It felt the hand on her ankle, and like with the knife to the neck, it was ready to kick and scratch and rip the knife out of him and stab him _again_ if that was what it took—

She drew her other leg back, and when she kicked out her heel connected solidly with the man’s jaw.

He let go.

She was on her feet and running around the block. She wheeled around the corner and threw her back agains the brick, catching her breath. She didn’t hear him coming after her. He seemed to have stayed where she left him.

She pulled out her phone, bobbled it, hands slick, why were they so wet and slick—fuck, it was blood, she had blood and alley muck all over her hands—she hurked and had to swallow thickly a few times to keep the bile down.

She unlocked the phone after three tries, typed in 9-1-1 with shaking fingers. Her thumb hovered over the green call button.

As her heart rate slowed, and the longer she heard nothing but quiet from around the corner where the guy lay dying, an alien coldness swept through her.

If she called now, the ambulance might get here. They would probably save him.

She watched the time display on her phone, hitting the home screen to relight the monitor intermittently.

When ten minutes had passed, she pressed the green call button.

“Hello, hi, I was walking home and there’s a dead guy in the alley, it looks like someone stabbed him. Where am I? I don’t think, I’m on—wait, I need to look for a street sign, hold on.”

She spun in a useless circle, looking for a street sign. She was all turned around from her earlier flee for safety. She thought maybe Elm—but it could also be Oar, she wasn’t sure—she saw the sign.

“In the alley between Jackson and Elm. Yeah, I can wait." 

Phone still to her ear, she took a breath, and felt calm enough to turn the corner and go back into the alley where the guy was probably breathing his last, if he wasn’t dead already.

The alley was empty.

The dispatch person in her ear asked her a question, but she couldn’t understand the words. “What—I’m sorry, say that again?” she said, voice shaking. She looked left, right, scanned the alleyway in every direction. 

It was empty. He was gone.

“Wait.” She cut off the dispatch person repeating the question. Her ears were ringing. “I. I’m. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

She hung up as the dispatch person said something else, voice urgent. 

She didn’t bother with walking the rest of the way home. She ran up the alley and onto Elm. She was past the spooky homeless park without even noticing. She was at her apartment building before she realized she didn’t have her keys. They were on the keychain, with the knife.

She slid down until her back was against the vestibule door. She pulled out her phone, every part of her shaking. It took her five tries this time to unlock her phone. It took her even longer to call Brett. The phone rang endlessly, and went to voicemail. She was crying, she realized, as she tried to leave a message.

She didn't know what else to do but leave a message.

“Brett? Uh. Hey, Brett. So. Call me when you get this. I need you to—I don’t know. It's been a weird one tonight, let me tell you. I don't know what else to do. Just call me back. Please. Call me back.”

The street was empty as she huddled against door. She had nothing to do now but wait, and try to convince herself that she didn't hear any footsteps, or the jingle of keys on a keychain. She was alone. She was alone. She repeated it, over and over until they weren't words anymore, just static.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumbledumble - 
> 
> main: ohjafeeljadefinitelyfeel
> 
> writing side blog: gblfiction


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